Emerging Trends of Talent management in HRM Introduction Talent management is a professional term that gained popularity in the late

1990s. It refers to the process of developing and fostering new workers through on boarding, developing and keeping current workers and attracting highly skilled workers at other companies to come work for your company. Talent management in this context does not refer to the management of entertainers. Companies that are engaged in talent management (human capital management) are strategic and deliberate in how they source, attract, select, train, develop, promote, and move employees through the organization What is talent management? The term talent management means different things to different people. To some it is about the management of high-worth individuals or "the talented" whilst to others it is about how talent is managed generally - i.e. on the assumption that all people have talent which should be identified and liberated. This term is usually associated with competencybased human resource management practices. Talent management decisions are often driven by a set of organizational core competencies as well as position-specific competencies. The competency set may include knowledge, skills, experience, and personal traits. Talent management is the recruitment, development, promotion and retention of people, planned and executed in line with our organizations current and future business goals. Because it is aimed at building leadership strength in depth, it creates flexibility to meet rapidly changing market conditions. A structured talent management process will systematically close the gap between the human capital an organization currently has and the leadership talent it will eventually need to respond to tomorrow's business challenges. Talent Management as a Strategic Approach We view talent management as a strategic approach to managing human capital throughout the career cycle: attracting, retaining, developing and transitioning your most important assets. Attracting Talent: Creating Assessment and Selection Strategies and Processes Attracting qualified talent is the critical first step in the talent management cycle. The improving economy, Baby Boomer retirement and other factors are creating keener competition for talent these days, making this critical step tougher than ever. So how do you get a leg up on the competition? Matching the Right Candidate to the Boss Matching the right person to the right job is an acknowledged need in organizations. But one of the toughest challenges in selection often overlooked is matching the right candidate

to his immediate boss. What makes that goal particularly tough is when the boss does not have a clue what kind of candidate would work well with him. Working with various tools, we can design and customize assessment exercises and materials. We also identify critical competencies your people will need, develop success predictors and consult with you on general recruiting strategies. Retaining Talent: Reducing Turnover and Aligning Talent with Organization Goals With 75% of employees looking for new employment opportunities at any given time and five million Baby Boomers expected to retire in the next few years, the war for talent is back on. Companies that develop successful retention strategies can win that war. Most companies today would acknowledge that their human assets are their most important asset. But since companies can't own employees the way they own factories or product, your success or failure hinges on the quality and duration of the relationships you form with your people: retaining talent. Developing Talent: Challenging Your People with Executive Coaching and Leadership Development Programs. Employees cite career development as one of two top job satisfiers, along with compensation. Your employees want to be challenged and developed. If they're not, they will become less productive or perhaps even leave. Career Partners International provides a full range of services for developing talent, ranging from career development, executive coaching and leadership development to new job integration, team building and succession planning. And our measurement techniques will demonstrate to top management how investing in your talent pays off. Career Development / Career Management These programs are designed for professional and entry- to mid-level managers. CPI provides assessment and feedback, planning, support, coaching and other tools, tailored to help your people realize their career goals, aligned with organizational goals. New Job Integration / Assimilation The first one hundred days on a job are critical for new leaders. We assess and coach leaders to gain effectiveness more quickly, avoiding common pitfalls of their new roles. We provide feedback, planning and coaching, based on assessments. Leadership Development Our leadership development programs include a wide variety of leadership and management skills for developing talent, including coaching, conflict management,

decision making, delegating, mentoring, motivating and performance management. We develop a leadership model specific to your company's needs and help organizations implement and manage their leadership development programs. We provide assessment and feedback, action planning, coaching and support to promote changes that align leadership and organizational performance. Transitioning Talent; Creating Goodwill through Career Transition Programs Put as much thought into how you transition employees out of the company as you do attracting talent, and the return on investment is usually a happier workforce, separated employees who are more contented, and a community that regards you as a good citizen. The benefits of offering exiting employees quality transition programs far outweigh the costs and risks of not providing them. The Corporate Talent Challenge 1. This research will help you clearly understand why talent management is not just a "new name" for HR, but a business imperative with very different challenges in each industry. The Business Drivers of Talent Management 1. It helps readers understand specifically how to tie talent management solutions to specific business problems such as the shortage of mid-level managers, rolling out new products, mergers and acquisitions, and 8 other business challenges. An effective talent management system builds a winning organization by: v Connection corporate strategy with the quantity and quality of leadership required to execute it. v Driving leader's accountability for the cultural strategies that support business goals.

v Identifying those individuals with the highest leadership potential across the organization early in their careers. v Assessing high-potential talent against a holistic and future facing definition of leadership v Accelerating the development of high-potential talent and improving the quality of executive leadership v Enhancing the focus on growing better leaders at all levels from first line upwards

Seven steps of talent management

Step 1. Starting with the end in mind-our current and future business needs Step 2. What kind of talent does the business need? Step 3. What and where are the gaps? Step 4. Identifying high potentials 4.1 Evaluating current performance. 4.2 Identifying potentials 4.3 Creating an acceleration pool Step 5. Assessing readiness for Leadership transitions 5.1 Individual Readiness 5.2 Organisational readiness or "Talent Audit" Step 6. Accelerating development Step 7. Focusing and Driving performance 8 (Eight) Principles for success 1. Accurate diagnosis is the first step in effective development 2. Ensure development is tied to where our business is going now and in the future. 3. Development talent needs to represent a balance between fixing weaknesses and leveraging strengths. 4. Prioritize potential 5. Effective development requires a blend of activities including mentoring, classroom learning, coaching, job assignments, action learning etc.. 6. Don't underestimate the role of management support 7. Creating learning tension will maximize your return 8. Developing others becomes a measurable management performance objective. Ten traps of talent management 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Paying lip service to a talent management strategy No clear definition of Leadership' Confusing talent management with succession planning Shrouding the process and Ground rules in mystery Waiting for the cream to rise Using subjective data to make crucial decisions about talent Ignoring quirks of personality in promotion decision

8. Lazy thinking about development solution 9. Ignoring the team mosaic 10. Assuming your managers at all levels are Talent Leader'

Defining Talent Management 1. This framework, the High Impact Talent Management Framework, is described in detail. The Future of Talent Management The research looks into the future of integrated talent management and how organizations will likely evolve and mature their solutions into the future. Integrated talent management wheel Talent is now a global game. It requires a much broader horizon than just a specific company, city, region or country. And it requires a much broader vision even within a company. The Talent Wheel (Figure 1) highlights the key talent functions that need to be coordinated and integrated within organizations. Workforce planning looks at the supply and demand for talent over a two-year or longer period of time for key jobs within the enterprise. Key issues are retirements, planned and unplanned attrition, varying staffing options, competencies for superior performers and bench strength for key talent. Talent acquisition is the ability of a company to attract and hire key talent. This is one of the two most pressing needs according to Accenture's 2005 survey of global executives. Key issues are compelling employment brand and value propositions, referral recruiting, and keeping a gold standard for new talent entering the organization. Talent engagement represents the extent to which the workforce identifies with the company, is committed to it and provides discretionary effort so that it can be successful. Engagement is a key leading indicator for high performance workplaces, improved employee productivity and subsequent turnover. Keep engagement surveys relatively short and ensure that data are acted upon by employees and managers.
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Talent development used to be synonymous with training, but no longer. Research shows that 70 percent of what we need to know to do our job, we learn on the job. Informal learning is more powerful than formal learning through such activities as stretch assignments, cross-functional teams, international assignments and flexible job design. Talent deployment can be summarized as the right people are doing the right job at the right time. Top talent is assigned to the most vital projects or roles. Alignment is a key aspect of talent deployment, and it is most often achieved through performance management systems and competency databases matching project needs to employee capabilities. The ability to lead talent is also key. Great managers are like chess players who understand that different pieces (employees) have unique strengths (Buckingham, 2004), and these managers work hard to put employees in positions where they can shine. Great managers also understand that their value to the organization is through the contributions of others, and it is their responsibility to develop, guide and enhance the performance of the people that report to them. Talent retention is the number one issue on the minds of global executives according to the Accenture study (2005). Many CEOs doubt their company's ability to retain top talent. Too little and too much turnover can damage a business. It is interesting to observe that when managers of departing employees are asked why a person left, money is the overwhelming answer. When the employees themselves are asked, money doesn't even make the top five. These talent functions must work together and be part of a seamless system. Being excellent in one or two areas is a start, but the whole system must be working effectively. It does little good, for example, for a company to attract and hire great talent but then have few challenging development opportunities. Similarly, for CEOs to focus compulsively on retention misses the point that retention probably wouldn't be a problem if talent engagement, development and deployment functions were smoothly operating.

These talent functions are too important to be left to separate departments, silos or champions. The essence of a company's ability to compete rests with the optimization and integration of these functions it is the network, not the nodes that provide the value. The tipping point Talent management is ready to be tipped. First, there is the growing amount of empirical evidence that shows a clear relationship between excellent talent practices and improved shareholder returns. Among the providers of this research are McKinsey, Gallup, Collins, Bassi, Watson & Wyatt, Becker and Huselid, and the Fortune Best Places to Work surveys. Second, there are the best practices from companies that truly believe that talent is the essence of their success. Among these companies are GE, Dell, P&G, HSBC, FedEx, Starbucks, Microsoft and Capital One, to name just a few. Third there is the growing realization that talent issues are board level issues. More investment analysts and company directors are demanding to know about engagement levels, segmented turnover data, and the types of developmental opportunities for top talent. CEOs are starting to spend 30 percent or more of their time on talent issues, and are being held accountable for the strength of their talent pools. For instance, all companies registered in Denmark will be required to include in their annual reports information about customers, processes and human capital. A minimum of five measures for each is required and comparisons with the previous two years must be shown. Information for investors about intellectual capital both current and future should occupy at least one-third of the report. The confluence of both internal and external factors is causing a new science of talent management to emerge and tip. This is very different from traditional human resources concerns. While HR is more concerned with consistency, compliance and treating everyone in the same fashion, talent management recognizes that different people make different contributions to the enterprise, and that top talent is the key to competitive differentiation. The seamless and integrated functioning of the talent management wheel is what will drive companies into a leadership position in the new, post-knowledge economy. Increased focus on retaining talent: High performing employees are always in demand. Good recruiting organizations focus equally on internal candidates and external candidates. Companies have placed additional focus on building value and quality within the recruitment function. HR leaders are gaining more influence over organizational direction and value. Continued convergence of organizational expertise for strategic HR processes: Recruitment, compensation, performance and learning have been disparate HR (and even non-HR) functions with distinct and unrelated business outcomes.

Renewed focus on acquiring and managing talent: CEOs and HR executives are recommitting to talent management. Leading companies are deploying resources and capital to talent and career development programs, including succession planning and management. How global companies are changing? Corporations around the world are in the process of deploying the next generation of enterprise technology. It is not a trivial transition. Enhanced functionality, dynamic global influences and requirements, new solution delivery models and an infrastructure shift to services-based architectures are changing the way companies upgrade and adopt new technology solutions. The success of the talent management market rests on: Integrated functionality and usability: Many vendors have invested heavily in the usability and integrated functionality of their solutions. The ability to seamlessly integrate data and streamline navigation and use enhances the user experience and encourages increased use of the solutions. A single data model technology infrastructure is ideal to maximize performance and simplify application management. Dynamic influences in shaping the global workforce: Companies are being forced to adjust to ever-changing global regulatory and compliance issues that outline how companies can find, recruit and manage their workforces. In addition to automating HR processes, companies are now focusing internally to build a performance-based culture centered on metrics-based business outcomes and driving additional value of the company by adapting and improving the way they manage their global workforce. Rapid acceptance of the on-demand model: The majority of most vendors' revenue comes from an annuity-based hosted delivery mode. Indeed, many recognize 100 percent of their revenue from their on-demand solutions. The general acceptance of the on-demand model owes much to its proven success within other enterprise application categories such as CRM. In addition, the diminished impact of security issues has helped build the ondemand model. Demand for service and support excellence: Service and support distinction has surpassed security issues as the key concern for those adopting talent management applications. Although security issues are still prevalent, especially if IT is involved in the decision-making process, key stakeholders in the vendor selection process have shifted their focus toward ongoing service and support issues as their key areas of interest. Many vendors continue to develop support options that meet the needs of their customers and have become very sophisticated in the tools and techniques used to measure service-level performance. Multinational capabilities: Global enterprises are demanding multi-language capabilities and in-country domain expertise to support the ever-changing international laws. A

changing global landscape and an increasing assortment of compliance issues require vendors to maintain a strong international presence. The time is now to leverage talent management technologies. Today's available talent management solutions can not only support the changing dynamics of your workforce, but help plan for the future in building both a high caliber workforce and performance-based culture. Seven talent management practices that matter How can you create an enriching workplace? It isn't easy and doesn't happen overnight. But with some planning, a lot of persistence and adept execution of seven key practices, any organization can create an enriching workplace. 1. Job Stretch and Mobility Feel like you're stuck in a box at work? If you do you've got plenty of company. Many organizations define jobs narrowly and allow little or no movement across organizational boundaries or even within them. But to grow, talented people need to be constantly challenged and stretched. This means the ability to take risks, to try new things, and yes, even to fail - whether by doing something differently in an existing job or tackling an entirely new one. If experience is indeed the best teacher how much are we learning if what we do rarely changes? SEI Investments, a leading global provider of outsourced investment business solutions, has created an environment that provides continual challenge to staff and enables them to regularly move around the organization and to frequently take on new tasks and responsibilities. 2. Mentoring Not Just Managing Nothing speeds up the transfer of knowledge and know-how or enhances individual development more than a quality one-to-one dialogue between an experienced person and an up-and-comer. W.L. Gore, creator of Gore-Tex fabrics, is a mentoring-intensive organization. Managers are called "Sponsors" and act as advocates for their assigned staff. They commit to being knowledgeable about their activities, well being, progress, accomplishments, personal concerns and ambitions. Each associate has at least one sponsor and some have more than one. 3. Freedom and Stimulation Often the environment in which people work can make a huge difference to the speed and quality of people development. Two ingredients essential to making a workplace conducive

to learning are stimulation - through frequent exposure to a wide variety people and ideas and the freedom to explore and pursue individual ideas and passions. Google is a nirvana for the best and brightest technical talent in the world. The company's commitment to human capital is strong and was a core principle expressed in its now famous IPO filing in 2004. Staff are given huge amounts of freedom to determine when, where, how and on what they work. Each is allowed to spend 20% of their time each week working on personally initiated projects. 4. Deep Immersion Nothing frustrates talented people, particularly young up-and-comers, more than being asked to wait their turn before getting the opportunity to contribute to important projects or initiatives. This is not only demotivating to people but counter-productive to performance as opportunities to contribute depend more on tenure and pecking order than merit. Trilogy, a software company based in Austin Texas not only avoids this problem, but has created a fast- track, merit-based process that starts with every new hire. Its induction program is on steroids - goals are not only cultural induction, bonding and skill development but to create the company's next generation of ideas, products and leaders. The program is led and run by Trilogy's top executives, including its CEO. 5. Teaching and Coaching This means having people in the organization - both managers and specialists whose role it is to help others to grow, learn and realize their potential. Many organizations have de-emphasized this key task as pressure to meet quarterly performance targets have cascaded down to every level of the organization. Schools provide an inspiration and model from which other organizations can learn. They have teachers whose only job is to develop their student's skills and learning. While few organizations are positioned to employ fulltime teachers, many should encourage and help managers and staff to take on this role. They can do this by explicitly acknowledging the value of teaching and coaching and including these responsibilities in the expectations and measures of performance set for managers and staff. 6. Diversity of Talents and Personalities The value of diversity in business seems obvious to most observers, but few leaders really know how to leverage the differences that people bring to the workplace. As Ricardo Semler, head of the innovative Brazilian conglomerate Semco puts it - "I prefer Coq-auVin to Chicken McNuggets". He is not talking about food but rather cultures that blend diverse talents and perspectives (like the ingredients in a slow-cooked Coq-au-Vin) versus those that impose numbing conformity on their people (like the industrial-style sameness of Chicken McNuggets). And believe me, many companies have Chicken McNugget talent -

mass produced, standardized and consistently mediocre. Far better to blend diverse ingredients into a rich and unique tasting stew - ala coq au vin! Semco backs up its words with actions. It regularly pairs younger and older workers together. Its "Lost in Space" program affords young staff the opportunity to move around the company on a regular basis during their first few years. This helps them to both develop new perspectives are well as inject their own fresh ideas throughout the business. Their "Trading Places" initiative let's people trade jobs as a way of gaining new experience and skills. 7. Horizontal Growth Paths Flattening of hierarchies in recent years has severely curtailed growth paths in many organizations. But growth shouldn't just be up the ladder or depend purely on acquiring managerial skills. Another productive growth path is horizontal and progressive organizations have created lateral paths that allow people to broaden their skills and knowledge within their disciplines and jobs. Companies like IBM, Texas Instruments and Intel have instituted technical mastery programs to allow individual contributors and specialists to develop their knowledge and learning and to be paid and recognized for it. This means talent can advance based on their learning pace rather than have to change jobs or be promoted to get ahead. Four steps to making talent management a core competence There are four steps that companies can take to quickly assess their talent management process and begin improving their talent management competency: Step 1 Identify Key Roles. Analyze the key steps in each part of the talent life cycle (identification and attraction, hiring and inculcation, motivation and development, appraisal and reward, building and sustaining relationships) and map the key players and their roles and responsibilities to each stage. Are there gaps in responsibilities key activities that no one is directly accountable for? Are there overlapping responsibilities multiple people responsible for the same activity? Are the right people in the right roles? Are line managers provided with consistent and effective processes, guidelines and tools for managing talent? Step 2 Take an Inventory of Your Talent Management Skills. Identify the critical skills needed to play the key roles in the talent life cycle effectively. To what extent does your company employ people who possess them? What might you do to improve or develop them? What are you doing in-house that might be better outsourced? What have you outsourced that you should be doing in-house? Step 3 Measure the Right Things. Assess the measures you use to evaluate the performance of your talent management process at each life cycle stage such as offer-tohire ratios, average tenures of new hires, performance ranking, skill fit to job requirements,

etc. What data are you capturing and reporting? Does it feed directly into a enterprise talent scorecard? How do these measures align with your overall talent management strategy? Step 4 Set Up a Process-Wide Feedback Loop. Everyone managing talent needs to understand the big picture and to connect their role and responsibilities to the overall objectives of the process. How is data captured in each stage of the life cycle reported and communicated? How are knowledge and experiences shared across the process? Where are the information gaps and missed communications? How much feedback is formally captured and communicated versus informally discussed among staff? What key actions might you take to improve your feedback mechanisms? Targeted Talent Management Most large organizations talk about Talent Management as part of their wider strategy. It is a crucial way of securing, developing and motivating people with the right skills and approaches to meet business objectives. But how many of our strategic goals are fully met by our talented people? All too often, we find that we don't have the right people in place to fill a gap when it appears, or we simply can't keep hold of the individuals we want. Even worse, talented people may simply not be operating at the levels we require. So what can we do to seize these missed opportunities? I believe that the biggest single challenge is achieving genuine "connectedness" between Talent Strategy and Business Strategy. A wide range of people processes often take place without a clear relationship with the ultimate aims and culture of the business. Think about recruitment, performance management and development - to what extent are these processes based on a clear analysis of the talents and skills that people will need to operate at the next level? To what extent do you build people's capability and motivation to meet the needs of the business in a few years' time? It is vitally important to build a clear definition of what each organization really means by talent throughout the organization. The acid test is simple - do people with these qualities deliver the kinds of business success we are aiming for? In a project that I am involved with at the moment, I am working with a major organization that has a very clear sense of its future strategic direction. It is investing now in its people by providing feedback and coaching - targeting not only each person's natural areas of strength, but also pinpointing the specific qualities that the organization will need in the future. Crucially, this is not a one-hit wonder - the outcomes are linked to how people are managed, developed and motivated. The direct effect on business outcomes will be tracked and analysed. It is this joined-up quality that makes a significant difference linking business strategy to people's daily experience of the organization. It is vitally important that individual aspirations and organizational goals are delivered together. Too often, these are seen as unequal partners. However, organizations

that genuinely focus on understanding each person's own natural talents tend to achieve corporate success. We need to create different routes for people to progress and develop; otherwise we will only appeal to a narrow range of people. This approach requires an open mind, tackling questions like "How can we use this person's talents and energies?", "How can we organize our work differently?" or "Are we aiming for the wrong things?" But if such issues are genuinely addressed, great things can be achieved. "Alignment" is another key element of a successful Talent Strategy. When selecting or developing people, most organizations focus on the skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours required for the role. However, some organizations are beginning to look at the behaviours required to operate effectively in a particular team or culture. Working with Professors Michael West and Neil Anderson, ASE have an approach that looks at all of the factors that drive team performance (not simply the "types" of people in the team), and this leads to impressive results. We need to understand the relationship between people's motivations and the sorts of organizational cultures in which they will thrive. Talent Management should be about delivering business success through understanding what we actually mean by talent, and how it will achieve the specific goals of the organization. It is about ensuring that we value the natural talents and aspirations of our people. It is about ensuring that we understand what blockages can spoil all our hard work. it is about operating people processes that join together not only with each other, but with the business's goals. And finally, it is also about understanding how to manage people for alignment as well as ability. If we adopt these approaches, not only will business success follow, but we should also have fulfilled and effective people. Conclusion The management should be innovative and proactive to win the war of talent. With the next-generation predictive modeling systems, talent management and workforce planning can be transformed from reactive administrative functions to proactive systems capable of accurately forecasting talent demand right to the individual job. Attracting and nurturing talent has become the single most dominant force. Today attracting brains is more difficult than foreign direct investment. However, talent is what will make India enduringly competitive. Strategies are to be framed for overcoming talent shortages. Obstacles to talent are to be identified and overcome. This can make talent flourish if the enabling social and physical infrastructure is in place. In the words of Anil Ambani "Talent is footless and youth will seek a better quality of life where ever and whenever". A rightly managed talent turns out to be a gold mine. It's inexhaustible and priceless. It will keep supplying wealth and value to the organization. In turn, management needs to realize its worth, extract it, polish it and utilize it. Don't hoard. Talent-spend it lavishly, like a millionaire flashing his luxuries, because Talent is wealth. 0digg

If we trace back the history of business environment, in the early years, trading patterns and markets were stable, technology was static, customers were passive, speed in getting to market was secondary, competition was limited to sectors and regions, and hierarchies were generally accepted in all walks of life. No more, since 1960s, America and much of the rest of the world has been almost continually buffeted by change. Customers demand that businesses do it better, faster, cheaper; employees want to control more than the Stop button on the assembly line. The twentieth century saw nations around the world become part of the global village, with trade barriers between them reduced or removed completely. Globalization of trade and economy are taking deep roots in India. The holistic paradigm shift to a single global company has opened up new economic opportunities. Events of the last five years of the previous century have focused our attention on knowledge industries. Quality human resources have therefore become an important base with which to respond to the emerging environment. The knowledge workforce in particular has a vital role to play in the emergence of the digital economy.

A look at the trends in managing people in this dynamic industry reflects that Attracting, Managing, Nurturing talent and Retaining people has emerged to be the single most critical issue in lieu of the enormous opportunities spun off by the market. The new avatar of talent is the knowledge professional who is innovative, business savvy, quick on the uptake, has an instinctive ability to network, and possessing unbridled ambition. They are propelled by an urge to experiment, scan new avenues that can spur their creativity. The knowledge professional will gravitate to an organization that is flexible, has strong values, a robust performance ethic and provides challenging work on latest technology. This has led to companies proactively taking measures on three fronts. First, companies create an organizational ambience where talent can bloom. Second, they put in place systems that help unleash their potential and third, they build a reward and recognition mechanism that provides value for people.

Profound systemic changes have been seen in the way companies are structured. The concepts of leadership and managing people gave undergone a radical rethink. Cubicles, hierarchies and rigid organization structures of the past, have now given way to open work environment, flat structure with informality being a general rule and empowerment of individuals. Today work itself is centered around projects, which have virtual teams working on them. This work structure has led to a culture of flexi time, round the clock

accessibility to the workplace. Also catching up fast is the trend of workstations at home, remote access, video-conferencing and reporting by exception. To stay one step ahead of the aspirations of their people, companies are continuously striving to provide an intellectually stimulating environment. Few examples being, in-house libraries, continuous up gradation of knowledge and skills, knowledge sharing, building relationships with academia thus enabling knowledge workers to pursue multiple careers within a single company. Coming times will see sabbaticals forming part of the organization culture, corporate universities dotting the new horizon, competing companies bunching together to setup knowledge networks.

Companies today are constantly striving towards enhancing the quality of work life and also the personal life of its employees and this does not stop with the employee buts gets extended to his / her family as well. In-house health clubs, yoga and meditation centers to relieve stress, sports and cultural activities, employee get-togethers with invitations to come over with families, day care centers and many of the like are being provided by companies.

With the increasing size of the companies, the top down communication model of yesteryears has been replaced by bottom up, cross level communication thereby encouraging people to voice their opinions and feelings. Open house sessions, mentoring, online chats on the intranet have emerged to be the communication enablers.

The new economy has given rise to a culture of working in teams. Today no job in the knowledge industry can be performed in isolation. Since working in teams is not a passing fad, companies are now designing compensation structures, which rewards team performance in addition to individual performance.

To conclude, change is here to stay, and we need to understand that all the practices that are working today may not necessarily work tomorrow. Customers expectations, market changes and strategic decisions will derive the tools to managing the human assets.

Head Hunting (Also called as "Body Shopping")

There is this bread or group of talent, which are highly experienced, competent with great leadership skills but very passive in job market. They are very experienced in their domain and industry. Sometimes, they are also the founder member of the organization. Generally these are the people working in the capacity of Senior Managers, General Managers, CFO's, CTO's, CEO's, Vice-Presidents, Directors, and Managing Directors etc in their present roles. They do not post their profiles on jobsites. They do not even read jobsections of newspapers. They do not apply for any jobs opportunity. Only very few of their friends and close associates are in procession of their profiles. They need to be challenged by an opportunity. Such people need to be head-hunted. Generally, recruitment consultancies are EXPECTED to do this job. This is a way to get the talent when you are looking for rare and distinct talent that is when you are looking to fill positions like CFO, CEO etc. Here, numbers are not important but quality is. In a year, you might be able to head-hunt 15-20 people but they will be of high worth and value. Not everyone can be a "Head Hunter", you need to have "special" type of skills to be a "Head Hunter". Every type of sourcing is not called as head-hunting. For a sourcing to be called as "Head-hunting", this should involve "rare profiles"; profiles and skill sets not readily available in the market.

Talent-Poaching
This, according to some section in the industry, is considered as unethical mode of sourcing and hiring. For this, you need to understand the business of your company and also should be aware of the competitor companies in your industry. Just target those companies and hire in masses from those companies right from the entry level to senior level. This tactic is usually used to kill the competition. This is like a big fish eating the small fish. People

across the globe are discussing and debating to ascertain, if the "Talent Poaching" is ethical or unethical. No doubt, this is one of the easiest ways to source trained and talented people within the industry when you have infrastructure and money.

Distinction between Headhunting and Talent Poaching

Some talent acquisition managers as well as hiring and recruitment professionals are confused and are not able to discriminate between the two. Here are few differences between the two: 1) Headhunting is associated with senior and rare profiles. Talent Poaching is just sweeping and running through talent-wealth of your competitor. 2) Headhunting is planned. Talent Poaching is targeted. 3) In headhunting, the intention is to get the BEST person for your organization but in Talent Poaching, the intention is to kill your competitor and the competition. 4) Headhunting is about getting a person with "Leadership" skills with "Global Exposure". Talent Poaching is about "saving the training cost".